How the FBI cracked a “sextortion” plot against pro poker players

"We don't just fly out here and kick in your door knowing only a little."

At 8:05am on the morning of December 1, 2010, an FBI search warrant team swarmed up to a Silicon Valley home on an unusual misson: find the "sextortionist" who had been blackmailing pro poker players over the Internet. One agent pounded on the door and shouted out, "FBI!" Movement was heard inside, but no one opened the door. The agent knocked again, but the door stayed shut, so out came the battering ram. Wham—the door gave and FBI agents flooded inside, guns drawn in the dim light.

At the top of the staircase before them stood their target, Keith Hudson. "Show your hands!" demanded one agent. "FBI!" Hudson did not immediately comply; instead, he stepped back from the stairs and said he had to get his daughter. The agents commanded him to stop. Hudson did so, backing down the steps. He was handcuffed when he reached the bottom.

Outside and down the street, the force behind the search warrant was sitting in her car, waiting for the all clear. Special Agent Tanith Rogers had flown up from the FBI's Los Angeles office, where she had spent the last month flying across the country to investigate an online extortion plot. A key agent in the FBI's Cyber Division, Rogers had most of her answers already—the investigation documented in six notebooks stuffed with material—but she wanted Hudson to fill in some of the gaps. And to own up to what he had done.

Rogers entered the home with her partner, Special Agent Karlene Clapp, and the pair made sure that Hudson's three-year old daughter was taken care of before leading Hudson into his daughter's upstairs bedroom.

"I'm harmless," Hudson told them.

"But we're not," Clapp said lightly. It was a joke—sort of.

Hudson's handcuffs were removed; the bedroom door was closed. Hudson sat in a chair facing Clapp and Rogers. Advised that he had the right to remain silent and that he was not under arrest, Hudson nevertheless spoke to the agents. For two hours, the conversation revolved around a simple enough crime: someone had broken into the Hotmail account of professional poker player Joe Sebok and had grabbed copies of sexually explicit images featuring Sebok, which had been stored there as attachments. The mystery man then contacted Sebok repeatedly, demanding wildly varying sums of cash to keep the images under wraps. When Sebok did not comply, the extortionist released a pair of images to key people in the poker community.

“Did I really threaten to kill him?” Hudson asked.

The trail had turned up two sets of IP addresses. One belonged to Hudson, showing that he had looked at the images from within Sebok's Hotmail account. Hudson admitted to what the agents already knew, but he argued that extortion was the furthest thing from his mind; he had been, he said, simply helping out an online acquaintance, a college student and poker fanatic named Tyler Schrier, who had provided the login. Hudson said that Schrier, working from his dorm room in Connecticut, was the real mastermind.

Rogers was contemptuous.

"I am not going to lie to you," she told Hudson as the three spoke in the child's bedroom. "If you want to ask me any questions, I will tell you the truth. Here is what is going on right now: you're being silly. I know that you broke into Joe's account because I can show that your IP did it... So if you're going to lie, that's only going to make you look worse because here is what I have right now. I have three counts of extortion, and—I don't know—five or six counts of intrusion... This is where you get to decide if you want to be a witness or if you want to be a suspect. I know that you're lying because I can prove it."

"OK, I am not trying to lie to you..." Hudson said.

"The FBI does not fly us out here and we don't break into your door to talk to you if we don't have a substantial amount of evidence against you," Rogers said. "If you're going to tell me that some silly child who is in the East Coast and goes to college—who is 20—is the one behind it, I know you're lying."

Hudson, then in his late 30s, insisted it was true. In fact, he said he warned Schrier about what a bad idea blackmailing a pro poker player would be. He had made a screen capture of the images in Sebok's account and e-mailed them to Schrier, he admitted, but not for blackmail. Schrier had told him that his own computer was "too slow" to take the screencaps—Hudson was simply helping out a friend.

As unlikely as this story sounded already, it made even less sense when the agents revealed the other key fact in their possession: they knew that Hudson had urgently been seeking Schrier for weeks. The student had failed to respond to Hudson's increasingly frantic calls and texts and instant messages and e-mails. Hudson had then tracked down Schrier's father and even Schrier's school—apparently getting someone to take a note over to Schrier's dorm room—in his quest to get a response.

Rogers and Clapp suspected the reason for all the communication: Hudson was terrified that Schrier had succeeded in his extortion attempt and was now sitting on $100,000 of cash or more—and that he was going to cut Hudson out of his fair share. Not so, Hudson told the agents; he had simply been concerned about the well-being of his online acquaintance.

Which led the two FBI agents to the next obvious question: if this were true, why had Hudson threatened to kill Schrier if the student didn't return his calls?

"Did I really threaten to kill him?" Hudson asked them.

"Yes, you actually said, 'Why don't you call me so I can tell you how I'll kill you,'" said Clapp, who already had access to the instant messages and e-mails exchanged between the two men.

"Oh wow. Yeah, I guess I was frustrated to be honest... I just wanted to hear from him. You know what I mean?"

"No, I don't," said Rogers.

She clearly didn't believe large portions of what she was hearing from Hudson. As the interview concluded, Rogers provided a rousing peroration. "It's bullshit," she told Hudson about his story. "I know it's bullshit. You know it's bullshit. The judge is gonna know it's bullshit.... Own up to it or take your chances, which is crazy, OK, because we're the Cyber Division of the FBI for Los Angeles. It's the best Cyber Division in the country, and if you're gonna come at me with lies and minimize your part in it, it's just gonna piss me off, and that's what's going on right now."

Hudson realized that the time had come to find himself a lawyer.

The interview concluded and everyone headed back downstairs. As the warrant team left the house with several of Hudson's digital devices in tow, one agent looked back in through the window. Hudson stood at the sink, a picture of domesticity, washing the dishes.

124 Reader Comments

Rule #1 when dealing with any law enforcement official for anything more major than a traffic accident: "I'm exercising my right to remain silent until after I have consulted with my attorney." Say this even when you're being called as a witness to something you believe is unrelated to you.

Yes, you'll piss off the officers. However, it's the DA or Federal Prosecutor who's going to call a grand jury. You may believe you have nothing at stake during questioning. However, you also have no idea the premise the officers are investigating.

The guys in the article appear to be sleazes and i'm glad they're going to prison. That does not negate rule #1.

Rule #1 when dealing with any law enforcement official for anything more major than a traffic accident: "I'm exercising my right to remain silent until after I have consulted with my attorney." Say this even when you're being called as a witness to something you believe is unrelated to you.

Yes, you'll piss off the officers. However, it's the DA or Federal Prosecutor who's going to call a grand jury. You may believe you have nothing at stake during questioning. However, you also have no idea the premise the officers are investigating.

The guy in the article appears to be a sleaze and i'm glad he's going to prison. That does not negate rule #1.

Based on the behavior described(doing more hacking while awaiting trial, coordinating Serious Federal Felony Stuff over text messages a medium about as private as graffiti on the police station's wall and more personally identifiable, not even a token attempt to hide is trail online) the kid sounds like the sort of person who is immune to good advice...

Unless prison is capable of feats not even imagined among psychologists and psychiatrists on the outside, I suspect he'll be taking fairly regular vacations at our nation's fine penal resorts.

Mr. California also seems to have dug himself a bit of a hole; but it isn't as clear whether he is an outright headcase or just an opportunistic scumbag who doesn't realize that just because the internet keeps your hands clean doesn't mean it hides them.

Rule #1 when dealing with any law enforcement official for anything more major than a traffic accident: "I'm exercising my right to remain silent until after I have consulted with my attorney." Say this even when you're being called as a witness to something you believe is unrelated to you.

Yes, you'll piss off the officers. However, it's the DA or Federal Prosecutor who's going to call a grand jury. You may believe you have nothing at stake during questioning. However, you also have no idea the premise the officers are investigating.

The guys in the article appear to be sleazes and i'm glad they're going to prison. That does not negate rule #1.

Agreed. It's especially true if the police show up at your home and won't 'tell' you what the hell they are there for.The police did that one time at my home and I saw that they had a sheaf of papers with them. I told them "Okay, I'll talk with you.... but in return, you show me ALL those papers!"They balked so I told them, bluntly and literally, to fuck off and go away.

They were trying to extort someone from private information they found on the internet yet took no action to even try hiding their own illegal activities. If all criminals were of this caliber genius we'd be crime free inside a week.

Rule #1 when dealing with any law enforcement official for anything more major than a traffic accident: "I'm exercising my right to remain silent until after I have consulted with my attorney." Say this even when you're being called as a witness to something you believe is unrelated to you.

Yes, you'll piss off the officers. However, it's the DA or Federal Prosecutor who's going to call a grand jury. You may believe you have nothing at stake during questioning. However, you also have no idea the premise the officers are investigating.

The guy in the article appears to be a sleaze and i'm glad he's going to prison. That does not negate rule #1.

Based on the behavior described(doing more hacking while awaiting trial, coordinating Serious Federal Felony Stuff over text messages a medium about as private as graffiti on the police station's wall and more personally identifiable, not even a token attempt to hide is trail online) the kid sounds like the sort of person who is immune to good advice...

Unless prison is capable of feats not even imagined among psychologists and psychiatrists on the outside, I suspect he'll be taking fairly regular vacations at our nation's fine penal resorts.

Mr. California also seems to have dug himself a bit of a hole; but it isn't as clear whether he is an outright headcase or just an opportunistic scumbag who doesn't realize that just because the internet keeps your hands clean doesn't mean it hides them.

Basically this sums up why you must behave on the internet. If you do stupid illegal shit on the net, you mostly gonna get caught. The only reason people get away with anything, is because it is not worth the effort to chase you. In this case these idiots were worth chasing.

Damn, and here I thought Hotmail had fixed their glaring security issues way prior to 2012.

The guy seemed to be able to hack into hotmail accounts with little or no difficulties.

Yeah, this is the part that doesn't get explained (at least in the publicly available info--the FBI may have figured it out): how did they get into all these e-mail accounts? Hudson said that, as far as he knew, Schrier had some software that could do it, but both people were blaming each other enough that I couldn't tell exactly *what* had happened. One of them did suggest that in at least some cases, the passwords were simply horrible and were just... guessed. Not sure that's true, though.

This story could have been better if these two bozos had actually attempted to hide their identities AT ALL and made the FBI, i don't know, do actual work to find them.

Sheesh, talk about a case served up on a silver platter.

Agreed. All that "We're the Cyber Division of the FBI for Los Angeles!" stuff would come across as a lot more impressive if they weren't grilling someone who did the equivalent of robbing a bank without a mask while wearing his work uniform and name tag.

Basically this sums up why you must behave on the internet. If you do stupid illegal shit on the net, you mostly gonna get caught. The only reason people get away with anything, is because it is not worth the effort to chase you. In this case these idiots were worth chasing.

I don't think this story supports that lesson at all. All it tells us is that if you do "illegal shit on the net" and make absolutely no effort to hide your tracks, "you mostly gonna get caught". I don't think it says anything about criminals who are competent enough to take basic precautions like avoiding the use of personally-identifiable communication channels and internet access points. Let alone the criminals using log-less foreign VPNs accessed from a geographically dispersed set of free public wifi hotspots.

I'm not saying smarter criminals never get caught, or can't be caught. But these dim bulbs are not the poster children for implacable online law enforcement that you want.

I feel like this should be clarified somewhat. Given what other reporters, namely Radley Balko, report about police militarization these days, this could be anything from a dozen people in FBI wind jackets breaking into someone's home with their service pistols to, what I'm guessing actually happened, was a full on SWAT team with MP5s breaking down someone's doors.

After reading the story, neither of these people sounded like good people, but did they really need the full on violent military style raids that it was basically implied happened? After all, SWAT or ERT teams are supposed to respond to already violent situations with overwhelming force. When there's no violence to begin with, all they do is actually escalate the level of violence.

I wondered about that too. I guess I can see where the battering ram approach might be necessary, given how quickly computer evidence can be destroyed. But that's purely about gaining rapid entry. I don't see any threat that would reasonably indicate full-on SWAT. The article doesn't give details either way, but I'd certainly be interested in hearing more about the specifics of the actual raids.

The only thing I'm missing here is a hero. Something in the lines of Hudson being a persecuted activist, or Schrier being an savant locked up in a mental institution by his ultraconservative parents... Or at least a rogue vigilante cop getting on the case to solve his own poker addiction incurred debts.

After reading the story, neither of these people sounded like good people, but did they really need the full on violent military style raids that it was basically implied happened? After all, SWAT or ERT teams are supposed to respond to already violent situations with overwhelming force. When there's no violence to begin with, all they do is actually escalate the level of violence.

I disagree. Going in with overwhelming force minimizes the risk of escalation; are you seriously claiming that either of these raids was "escalated"? Basically, they went from zero violence to... zero violence! Except for Hudson's door; well, cry me a river. What this prevents is the (all-too-common) scenario of a previously non-violent criminal who just happens to have a gun or two for protection. THAT scenario tends to escalate when one or two cops show up and flash a badge.

I'm not in favor of militarizing the police either, but overwhelming force actually does have its legitimate uses, and the best of them is preventing violence before it erupts. I'm pretty sure Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and all those cats would agree.

I'm puzzled ... online poker players keep their balances in their emails? And anybody who obtains that info can cash it in?

What the fuck?

Online poker players keep their balances in their online poker accounts. Stupid online poker players use their email addresses, and email passwords, as the login credentials for their online poker accounts.

... and now, I would like this story to be made into a nice 2 hour long movie.

Any screenplay adaptation always has a love story. I'm not sure I'd want to see that here..

They could always do a based on a true story movie and change the college kid to a college chick. I'm sure we can think of a quite a few actresses that would be great in this movie

I guess there are at least some Ars readers that are gay and that would be offended by such a display of hetero-normalization ;-).

As for the story I enjoyed Nate's write-up.

Apparently the law must have thought that Tyler Schrier was the master mind because he took the heavier sentence.

It's quite obvious from the last part of the article that he is serious need of a good psychiatrist.I'm not a specialist but someone whose behavior is such that he doesn't seem to realize that there are consequences to his actions and who displays such callousness towards others (in his numerous messages) must have something of a mental disorder.

And no it's not liberal, bleeding-heart talk to try to exonerate him from his responsibilities. He did the crime so it's only fair that he should do the time.

As for Hudson's statement at his sentencing concerning the impact on his livelihood if I were the judge hearing that bullshit I would have said in my best Eastwood voice: "tough luck dude but you should have thought of that beforehand".

Also I guess the FBI is not completely stupid and won't reveal the exact way they broke into other people's Hotmail account for fear of somebody repeating this 'feat'.

For me the take away from that story is this: there is ZERO anonymity on the net, even relatively skilled hackers like Lulzsec get caught and sentenced so those two script kiddies (even if one is middle-aged) didn't stand a modicum of a chance.

I have to agree. This is a great story, but I wouldn't call it "how the FBI cracked a sextortion plot" I would call it "how the FBI went to the 2 unique ip's of the homes of 2 suspected asshats and found 2 asshats"

Rule #1 when dealing with any law enforcement official for anything more major than a traffic accident: "I'm exercising my right to remain silent until after I have consulted with my attorney." Say this even when you're being called as a witness to something you believe is unrelated to you.

I disagree. Going in with overwhelming force minimizes the risk of escalation; are you seriously claiming that either of these raids was "escalated"? Basically, they went from zero violence to... zero violence! Except for Hudson's door; well, cry me a river. What this prevents is the (all-too-common) scenario of a previously non-violent criminal who just happens to have a gun or two for protection. THAT scenario tends to escalate when one or two cops show up and flash a badge.

I'm not in favor of militarizing the police either, but overwhelming force actually does have its legitimate uses, and the best of them is preventing violence before it erupts. I'm pretty sure Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and all those cats would agree.

But if you take that approach, where do you draw the line? Any interaction with a suspect (hell, any interaction with the general public) could unexpectedly escalate like that. Should all officers travel solely in ten-man SWAT units?

I think there's space between "one or two cops showing up and flashing a badge" and a paramilitary squad for a reasonable compromise. And again, we still don't even know where along that continuum the actual raids fell.

But if you take that approach, where do you draw the line? Any interaction with a suspect (hell, any interaction with the general public) could unexpectedly escalate like that. Should all officers travel solely in ten-man SWAT units?

I think there's space between "one or two cops showing up and flashing a badge" and a paramilitary squad for a reasonable compromise. And again, we still don't even know where along that continuum the actual raids fell.

Honestly, as long as the resources are available (and yes, I concede that resources are always an issue) I fail to see why "a reasonable compromise" is necessary. Was there probable cause? Check. Were there valid warrants, obtained in good faith? Check. Did nobody get hurt, on either side? Check.

ALL of my issues with the police have to do with their abiding (or not!) by the Constitution. I am unaware of any clause, or any amendment, that states that "you have the right to be arrested by no more than two policemen". If there is one - or if there's some reason why there should be one - please enlighten me.

If, on the other hand, we're talking about that elusive "right to the realistic chance of winning a gunfight with the officers who are coming to arrest you", that's a whole 'nother story.

Mind, I'm *glad* criminals are idiots, but the above scheme took me about 30 seconds of thought to come up with, and if they'd done it they'd be scott free (whether or not images were now abounding on teh interwebs).

I mean, Gmail address? Seriously? There's a damn link in the footer with ip address history.

On the flip side, a proxified torred 10-minute-mail, I have no idea where to even start tracing that nonsense. Though I think law enforcement has limited success in tracing tor connections now?

I feel like this should be clarified somewhat. Given what other reporters, namely Radley Balko, report about police militarization these days, this could be anything from a dozen people in FBI wind jackets breaking into someone's home with their service pistols to, what I'm guessing actually happened, was a full on SWAT team with MP5s breaking down someone's doors.

Having actually witnessed an FBI search warrant team in action in a much more up close and personal way than most people want to deal with, unless they expect the target to be armed and dangerous, they generally show up with the lead investigators and as many of the local FBI office as feel like taking a field trip that day.

In the case I was involved in, there were about a dozen guys with guns and badges who harassed all my coworkers (I got a pass because I was the receptionist), absconded with a metric crap ton of files as well as a couple of computers, and then wasted several months realizing that the guy that threw us under the bus was a liar as well as a criminal. 9.9 ... The they dragged their heels and took a couple of years to give us our shit back, and managed to lose some of it in the interim. >_<